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riften's reviews
277 reviews
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Saw this first as the incredible NT production starring Sienna Miller. The effect of Skipper’s death, and the question of his relationship with Brick, is such a powerful, gutting reveal. I appreciated this insight re Brick and Skipper from Miller’s stage directions:
“The bird that I hope to catch in the net of this play is not the solution of one man’s psychological problem […] mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.”
The racism and fatphobia did take me out of the moment. But it’s 1955 and the worst people you know are at a family birthday party.
“The bird that I hope to catch in the net of this play is not the solution of one man’s psychological problem […] mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.”
The racism and fatphobia did take me out of the moment. But it’s 1955 and the worst people you know are at a family birthday party.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs
Minor: Fatphobia
Hiroshima by John Hersey
dark
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Six intertwining survival narratives of the attack on Hiroshima, which capture just how absurd and incomprehensible the devastation was. I found the descriptions of the city to have a creepy, fairy-tale-like quality: a garden in a razed city with pumpkins roasted on the vine, perfectly baked potatoes under the soil, and not a soul alive to eat them. Radiation stimulating roots of vegetation so that as people returned, bereaved and traumatised, the ruins were alive with verdant cheerful greenery.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Child death, Chronic illness, Suicide, and Terminal illness
Minor: Miscarriage
Hello Mum by Bernardine Evaristo
sad
medium-paced
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Murder
Moderate: Domestic abuse
Minor: Drug abuse and Gun violence
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Gawain Poet
adventurous
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A glorious poem for Christmastime! The Green Knight is one of my favourite films, so I was apprehensive once I realised how significantly different the original text is. But the rhyme and craft of the poem is utterly magical, and speaks so much to the crush of untempered nature in the Christian empire. Absolutely brilliant how those hunting and butchering scenes were juxtaposed with the castellan’s wife sexually “hunting” Gawain.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Blood, and Murder
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I have long wanted a novel about the mundanity of space lab tasks, and finally I have it. The whole book is beautifully crafted, and some passages really swept me away, although I have terrible memory and won’t try replicate them here. It felt very appropriate for an End of Year book, a time for dwelling on our relationship with the earth - sociologically and ecologically. I read some passages aloud to my mum while we were on holiday together this weekend, and she fixated on the message that borders cannot be seen from space, and bought herself a Xmas jumper that says CELEBRATING THE BIRTH OF A BROWN UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death, Death, and Injury/Injury detail